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Do Saliency Benchmarks Reflect Human-Like Attention? A Structural Analysis Using CAT2000


Arsalaan Ahmad

07/05/2026

Supervised by Hantao Liu; Moderated by Yuhua Li

This project investigates whether strong benchmark performance in visual saliency modelling is accompanied by behavioural fidelity to human gaze. Using the CAT2000 eye-tracking dataset, a failure-oriented evaluation framework is applied to assess state-of-the-art saliency models using both standard benchmark metrics and additional structural measures of spatial dispersion, attention fragmentation, and centre dependence. The analysis identifies systematic mismatches between benchmark success and human-like attention patterns across different image categories, contributing to a deeper understanding of what saliency models learn and where current evaluation practices may be insufficient.


Initial Plan (02/02/2026) [Zip Archive]

Final Report (07/05/2026) [Zip Archive]

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